Shangri-La ‘PlayStation’ strike dissolves after leaders dismissed

The strike at Shangri-La Villingili Resort and Spa has ended, according to Vice President of the Tourism Employment Association Maldives (TEAM), Mauroof Zakir.

157 Staffs at the Shangri-La Villingili Resort went on strike last week after four workers were dismissed for reportedly playing on a PlayStation in a vacant villa on the last Sunday. It continued throughout the week until Shangri-La management dismissed the 10 leaders of the strike and four villa host, and invited the remaining staff back to work.

Zakir claimed the strike ended when Shangri-La management sent a letter to the parents of the strikers on Feydhoo.

”They sent a letter signed by the general manager of the resort requesting that the strikers resign or the matter would be handled to the police,” Zakir said.

”Their wives, kids and parents were disappointed with the letter and pressured the staff to stop the strike and go work.”

Zakir said the strikers did not achieve all they had set out to achieve, but “it was a success that only 14 staffs were dismissed. At first they dismissed 65 staffs on the island.”

He said that strikers took a vote on Wednesday to decide if they were going to continue or end the strike.

”Ninety per cent of them voted to continue the strike,” Zakir claimed.

He said TEAM would “still work until we achieve our demands, with the help of international organisations.”

”We will take the case to the tribunal also,” he said. ”We will do as much we can.”

Shangri-La’s Communication Director Leslie Garcia denied management sent a letter to the strike leaders.

”They were dismissed in an agreement proposed by the resort management,” she said. ”They agreed to it.”

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Comment: Resort life – it’s all about pretence… lots of it.

In resort life everyone tries to be what he or she is not, according to circumstances. Sometimes this behaviour is required as part of the profession and sometimes it happens out of inclination. For example:

Managers

They come in all shapes and sizes. Some come with a perpetual frown on their faces whilst others hide their true expressions behind an engaging smile. But they all share in the pretence.

The guests

Most guests are also notorious at deception. It is an ingrained cultural habit to smile and make light of everything, however annoying.

However there are those who are exactly the opposite – the realists and the con-guests who will complain at the smallest inconvenience to get a free bottle of champagne or a discount on their stay.

Human resources

HR used to play God until the arrival of the dreaded labour laws. Now that the mantle of power to terminate staff indiscriminately on HR’s whims and wishes can at last be challenged in the labour tribunal, things are thankfully a little bit more even handed.

Reservations

Together with ’sales and marketing’, reservations would have everyone else believe that if not for them the resort is a few days from closing down and going out of business.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that most tourists just choose to come to our resorts after hearing about our beaches and small islands from the internet, mostly through tour operators.

Tour operators do not necessarily depend on reservations but sometimes they have an agreement with the resort for the allocation of rooms, which is ‘handled’ by these pompous people. In technical terms they are just clerks and data entry staff making a big fuss over their work.

Of course there are some sweet, down-to-earth reservations people who do not aggrandize their work but in resort life such humbleness is the exception rather than the norm.

Maintenance

The maintenance people generally include the engineers and the unseen crowd. They are happiest when something really major breaks down like an engine or a water plant, because that’s the only time they can shine and their work will be valued or respected by their superiors.

They are prone to making the smallest issue as big as possible just to get the attention of the managers, because that’s the only way up the corporate ladder from their level.

Waiters and room boys and girls

Generally honest and hard-working, these gentle people have a tendency to make a purely service task into a
technical one, which at a certain extent can be comical.

Launch section guys

Perhaps the most realistic in appearance and attitude are found in the ‘launch section’ team. They have a reason for that too – extended periods of time spent in monotonous journeys between islands and airports wear them down which makes them difficult to either please or irritate.

The IT guys

The IT guys are all smiles and kindness until a computer terminal is said to be terminally ill and the IT guy is called in. From that moment the IT guy is bossy, unfriendly, talks in jargon and generally looks down on the rest of humanity.

However a by-product of Moore’s Law is that advances in technology will soon make them redundant, as networks, computers and devices become more and more user friendly and intelligent. They had their day in the era of Windows 3.2 and dot matrix printers, when being an IT guy was not for the faint of
heart.

Nowadays the IT guy is pretty much only still alive thanks to Microsoft Windows and the uncommonness of common sense.

Chefs and the kitchen crowd

There is an unending war between the restaurant guys and the kitchen folk because all the hard work is done
in the kitchen but all the tips are received at the restaurant.

However as most resorts are mindful of this war, generally their salary is higher than the rest which is some solace to the animosity. The kitchen guys generally do not subscribe to false smiles and half-hearted greetings, because their life is hectic and hard.

Gardeners, labourers and the like

At the bottom of the ladder, these people are resigned to their fate or position and automatically have the rubbery smile and artificial greetings for all guests and superiors.

No such smiles for their peers and others, however – ambition is not lacking in this department, as gardeners are frequently fond of watering the plants around the GMs office hoping that he or she will take notice of the effort…

There is much hypocrisy to go around in resort life, but its worth it for the the fun. If all resort folk, including the guests, were to be expressionless die-hard realists, life in a resort would be tough indeed.

Republished with permission from MaldivesResortWorkers, a site for resort staff to anonymously discuss the industry, their employers, and the realities of resort work.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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